Patients waiting Outside a First Aid Post in a Factory

The room contains elements of a modern working environment: clear signs on doors and walls, electric lights (though they barely illuminate the outside walls), loudspeakers sited high on the walls and functional furnishings. However, this is the inactive and uncommunicative part of the factory. The image is typical of Spear’s war work that scrutinised social interactions in unusual or strained circumstances – late shift workers slumped together on tube trains or deaf workers in a factory.